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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Valley of Decision, by Edith Wharton This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Valley of Decision Author: Edith Wharton Posting Date: August 1, 2009 [EBook #4327] Release Date: August, 2003 First Posted: January 7, 2002 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VALLEY OF DECISION *** Produced by Sue Asscher. HTML version by Al Haines. THE VALLEY OF DECISION BY EDITH WHARTON Author of "A Gift from the Grave," "Crucial Instances," etc. "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision." TO MY FRIENDS PAUL AND MINNIE BOURGET IN REMEMBRANCE OF ITALIAN DAYS TOGETHER. CONTENTS. BOOK I. THE OLD ORDER. BOOK II. THE NEW LIGHT. BOOK III. THE CHOICE. BOOK IV. THE REWARD. BOOK I. THE OLD ORDER. Prima che incontro alla festosa fronte I lugubri suoi lampi il ver baleni. 1.1. It was very still in the small neglected chapel. The noises of the farm came faintly through closed doors--voices shouting at the oxen in the lower fields, the querulous bark of the old house-dog, and Filomena's angry calls to the little white-faced foundling in the kitchen. The February day was closing, and a ray of sunshine, slanting through a slit in the chapel wall, brought out the vision of a pale haloed head floating against the dusky background of the chancel like a water-lily on its leaf. The face was that of the saint of Assisi--a sunken ravaged countenance, lit with an ecstasy of suffering that seemed not so much to reflect the anguish of the Christ at whose feet the saint knelt, as the mute pain of all poor down-trodden folk on earth. When the small Odo Valsecca--the only frequenter of the chapel--had been taunted by the farmer's wife for being a beggar's brat, or when his ears were tingling from the heavy hand of the farmer's son, he found a melancholy kinship in that suffering face; but since he had fighting blood in him too, coming on the mother's side of the rude Piedmontese stock of the Marquesses di Donnaz, there were other moods when he turned instead to the stout Saint George in gold armour, just discernible through the g
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